The Rookie (manxmen)**Hothouse Book 1**

Chapter 6

"Are you looking for me?" The deep drawl from behind me caused me to jump and spin around to face the man himself standing there with nothing but a navy blue towel around his waist. And my mind just died, it just upped and crashed, a full all systems down. I felt like I was the stupid pink star in that underwater cartoon with drool leaking out of my mouth and one long constant, "DDDuuuhhhh." in a bubble over my head. But God, my inner twink had a video camera aimed at him in one hand and a cell phone snapping pics in the other. But it was unnecessary because I am never, for the rest of my life going to get this image out of my head.

He slowly walked across the carpet and the lights glistened off the beads of water that were still clinging to the sparse salt and pepper hairs on his massive chest. One of them decided to make a slow eye catching journey down the ridges of his mouth watering abs, and I wanted to groan out loud but I managed to bite it back as my cock pushed tightly against the zipper of my pants. He came to a halt just mere inches away from me. And those moss green eyes were burning as he stared into my own hazel ones. I was speechless, it was like we were sharing the same air. His warm minty breath brushed across my lips and I couldn't hold back the little whimper that sneaked out of my throat.

He went to open his mouth to say something when all of a sudden there was a God awful blaring of a louder than hell alarm. And other than the widening of his gorgeous eyes, the big man didn't move a muscle. He continued to stare into my eyes a second or two before he straightened up and waited until the obnoxious blaring ceased.  The red emergency lights were still flashing on the wall.  "Saved by the bell." He smirked and nodded his head towards the door. "Hurry up and get into your gear and haul ass to the rig before they leave you behind." He said and without looking back he disappeared through the door I was going to peek into before getting caught.

Then my brain function came back online with a vengeance. Shit, we were getting a real life call, and I scrambled to get out of the room and raced down the hallway and into the garage bay. The doors were already open and the trucks were fired up and running. I jumped into my turnout gear, and I was in the process of reaching for my helmet just as Xavier walked by and physically hoisted me up into the slowly rolling rig. And once he climbed in after me, the door was soundly slammed closed. He plunked my helmet on my head. I held onto the safety bar as Chuck floored the gas pedal and and the engine sailed out of the bay and onto the street. I barely saw the chief's SUV spin out behind us, with his lights flashing.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as the sirens were engaged. The information about the Type II huge multifamily structural fire. Several crews were already on scene evacuating the high rise condos, but the old building was burning quickly, and they wanted us the perform roof top rescues of the residents of the upper floors, seeing that the fire started on the middle floors and they were quickly becoming impassable for the tenants above it. By the time we got to the scene I was so stoked. Xavier took command immediately and started barking out our responsibilities, we answered to no one but the chief or himself, as the captain. We joined hands for a quick two line prayer of protection before we hit the ground running. It was amazing to see the other units literally move out of way and the awe on their faces as we passed by, in full gear complete with protective fireproof face shields.

Then I didn't have time to register their reactions to us, the training exercises that were ingrained into my psyche kicked in and as I helped Danny, Robbie, Dave, and Tom with their harnesses and ropes. People moved out of the way, rigs, and ambulances moved to make room for our heavy duty ladder truck that was going to be used to hoist hoist the men up the twenty floor structure. Then it was going to aide us the roof top rescue. I was busy remembering the procedures in my head, and I zoned everything and everyone as I made sure that my crew and their equipment was as safe as I could get them. The chief deep baritone boomed out my last name and I immediately responded by giving him my full attention. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Nate's approach and his attention snap our way and for the love of God, he was the last thing I needed on my very first call, but the big man barked out his orders for me to shadow the roof top team up the ladder, and I nodded and slipped on my own safety line.